No Peace but Passion
by Jest'lyn Tal
Summary: KOTOR - Spoilers - No one chooses to be good or evil. They just choose to be...


Standard Disclaimers Apply - I own nothing but the personality I imagined in the main character. George Lucas and Lucas Arts own the rest. Spoilers, however, for Knights of the Old Republic. Reviews more than welcome! (Hey, someone reviewed my last one and just LOOK what happened! I posted again! Stop the insanity!)  
  
"There is no peace, there is passion."  
  
She didn't run from the room, she strode. And she didn't cry, she glared. Dark emotions rolled, seething, and she let them.  
  
She hadn't wanted him dead. If she'd wanted him dead she'd of cut the brat so quickly he'd not of realized his head was on the floor until he was studying the stitches on her boots.  
  
But that would have meant Carth would have seen you as his son's murderer. You couldn't have that now could you?  
  
That wasn't the reason why she didn't hurt him! Even if it had been, it has backfired, now, hadn't it? He still blamed her. Of course, he always seemed to find it easy to blame her.  
  
The hallways of the academy on Korriban were cool, stone arches and darkness lingering in the corners like an old man lingering over memories. She liked it. It suited her. And she refused to think about what that might mean.  
  
Here. The torture room. Closed off from the rest of the academy and unoccupied except for a corpse. She expected he'd not be bad company.  
  
She found a corner to place her back against and slid down to the floor. She hadn't shot at the boy. Not that her restraint was noticed. She'd not made a single overt action, not a single one. She wondered if that was kind or cruel, since that meant that it was Carth's shot that actually killed his son.  
  
She hadn't wanted Dustil to exist. But that didn't mean that she had wanted him dead. Did it? Damn it, she wasn't a bad person.  
  
She took a breath and pulled her knees up to her chest. All that time, all that listening, all that unconscious caring. Pulled in to giving a damn about that over grown poster boy for the Republic. She should have been the one who was afraid to trust. She shouldn't have been so stupid. Her forehead rested against her knees and she shut her eyes. The rush of misery was quite overwhelming. She saw no need not to allow it to sweep her away for a while before she forced her head back above water.  
  
"What's this?" The voice was mocking, "Oh dear. Another hopeful reduced to, dare I say, tears?"  
  
She looked up to the snickers of the three who entered. They were not trainees; she knew the faces of her competition. So full fledged Sith, then. Her eyes narrowed and she was faced with the grumbling undertones of something much sweeter than misery in her emotions.  
  
"Leave," she said and could find no particular emotion to flavor the word.  
  
"Oh! Look at this. The little wretch is going to tell us to leave?" The apparent leader feigned amusement. His sycophants followed the cue.  
  
"I'm absolutely terrified."  
  
"Come on, make us!"  
  
Her eyes flickered to the last speaker. Very young. She'd already drawn her light saber in anticipation of a fight. The others were still pretending nonchalance. They hadn't even moved to close the gap between them yet. Idiots.  
  
Adrenaline now.  
  
Her lips were tightening into a smile. A smile for the sensation of something pure, something untainted with pain, something that felt warm and filled her with the peace of knowing - knowing exactly what to do and exactly what the outcome would be.  
  
The room was hers. The Sith were hers. And claiming it all was as simple as breathing.  
  
One hand gestured for the girl's light saber and took it; the other threw the whelp leader high against the far wall. The crack of his head against stone had barely enough time to be registered before the stolen light saber was thrown viciously after him.  
  
Over. Done.  
  
The girl was weaponless, the Twilek was too far away, and the dark haired leader?  
  
She held him. With her eyes and the Force she held him up and just above against the light saber she'd embedded in the wall between his legs.  
  
He could have tried to hold himself up, provided he could gather his wits. But he didn't dare. Sweat beaded on her forehead and her lips hurt with the grin.  
  
"Kodi-" The Sith began to shout. Not allowed. She dipped him down and the scent of burning hair accompanied his scream of fear. The other two froze again.  
  
She shook her head slowly in the negative. Then she stood and began to walk for the door. There should be parting words. A warning or a threat. But she couldn't think of anything that sounded appropriate and she found herself realizing that they didn't matter. They didn't deserve the breath, the thought, the time..their petty lives.  
  
She didn't know if it was the exertion or elation that was making her light headed, but both were potent. No one followed her as she left.  
  
When she passed the doorframe she released him. She did not, however, wait to see if either he or his fellows was able to catch him in time. 


End file.
